LDS Church Caught Lying, Charlie Bird Breaking Point, Bishop Charged - Mormon News 9.4.26 | Ep. 2189

0:00Push your limits, train with precision, see the results. At Equinox, that's high performance loving. Iconic spaces that inspire. Personal training backed by real data, unlimited group fitness classes from yoga and Pilates to strength and conditioning. Elevate your post-performance ritual with sonas, steam rooms, cold plunges, and more. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Mormon News podcast, brought to you by Mormon Stories podcast and generally, unquodable. I am Dr. John D'Alene and I'm here with Megan. Hey Megan. Hi John, happy Friday again. You're working for the flow week in Mormon news. No. I was already quite slow week. We might be waiting a while, let's see. I'm waiting for the week where Megan slacks me and says, hey, you know what, John, it really was a slow week. There's no point in doing an episode.

1:02Yep. We'll have a party that day. Well, September 4th, 2026 and we've got a lot recovered today. We're going to do it in under two hours. That's our new objective. And anything you want to start with before we share some breaking news, Megan. No, let's get into it. All right. Well, the thumbnail for today and the title for what we plan to talk about was what happened to the family. Mormon influencer takes down post after ugly backlash. But before we get into that, we have some breaking news. So I'm kind of, I'm kind of upset, Megan. I've been holding my tongue quite a bit publicly about the lawsuit. The Mormon Church's trademark and copyright lawsuit against me and Mormon stories podcast. But I just, I'm so upset. I'm going to just share what I think is some really breaking news.

2:06And I'll let our viewers and listeners decide for themselves if the church and its apologists are lying. So let's get into it. What I'm going to share with everyone right now. And this is before we talk about the stories we plan to talk about today. What I'm going to share with you now is an actual screenshot of one of the LDS churches' filings. And it's lawsuit against me. And what you'll see if you're just listening is, they do this. What I believe really deceptive thing is they like, they cherry pick a bunch of blue logos. And then they put a blue Mormon stories logo in the middle of it. And what they're trying to communicate there is this story that is false. And I believe defamatory that we chose blue to deceive people.

3:06And it's false. I think God is face because we were using blue logos long, long before the church's rebrand. And we show that in our response to the church's lawsuit. We had several blue logos before the church ever switched to a blue logo. But our graphic designer did choose a blue logo in December of 2022. And so what the church has done in its lawsuit is they've cherry picked a bunch of their blue logos, even though they use logos of all different types of colors. They choose, they cherry picked just a few of their blue logos and then put one of many logos we've used a blue one to make it look like we intentionally deceived people. And you know, that's deceptive in and of itself in my opinion. But then they jumped the shark and they write in one of their filings. And this is a legal filing before the court. They write in a 2022 Mormon stories episode, a guest tells Mr. D'Alene,

4:12he began listening because he believed Mormon stories was church affiliated. And I'll just say, Megan, that statement is face valid false. But it's also deceptive because it's put right under those blue logos because the obvious, what would you say the inferences, Megan, when they list a bunch of blue logos and then they put that statement that in a 2022 Mormon stories episode, a guest admits being deceived, believing the Mormon stories was church affiliated. Would you assume, Megan, that what the church is inferring is that that guest saw the Mormon stories blue logos and thus was deceived that Mormon stories was church run? Is that what you would assume? Absolutely. Yep. I would, as if I put my Mormon brain on, I would be like, oh, yeah, look, it does look similar. And yeah, of course, he thought it was going to be church

5:15approved and church affiliated. Yeah. So I'll just explain why that's totally deceptive and a lie. And what I want to do is first, you know, I'm really grateful to Julia of analyzing Mormonism. She was the first to produce a short about this specifically. I will also add that radio free Mormon and Rebecca Biblio Taca and Bill Real on the Mormon's newscast have covered, have started to cover this. But there's more detail that is yet to be covered. But let me just go ahead and play analyzing Mormonism's video of this that includes Jasmine Rapoli, who is, I think, doing some of the churches dirty work here in perpetuating what I believe are deception. So let's play the clip. But this lawsuit has never just been about the word Mormon. It has always been about

6:16brand confusion because many elements of the Mormon stories branding collectively have caused people to be confused about whether this critical podcast is coming from the church. Let's look again at the church's opposition to the motion to dismiss. Plenty of selects that defend its adopted a blue Mormon stories logo with a light-raised design, prominently used by the church, and also used confusingly similar color, font, and other design elements in a manner calculated to imitate the church's logo. The church was on to point out that plaintiffs used the light-raised design marks in various colors, but most prominently in blue. And it says the Mormon stories followed suit in 2022. So let's revisit that photo from Tommy. Jasmine says, and John Dylan himself seems to admit on his own show that it was partly his intention to confuse people. Dang. So I guess the rebrand happened and that's why Tommy was confused. His episode was released in 2022, and he must have seen the 2022 blue logo in this fantastic thumbnail and thought it was from the church. Wait, when did all of this happen? When did Tommy even see that episode? So in the church's footnote,

7:17the timestamp for Tommy's episode begins at one hour 36 minutes and 50 seconds. However, if you played just a few seconds before this clip, Tommy says this. I can kind of breeze through 2015, so when I got home to 2018, those years were filled with a lot of faith-promoting activities. I was going to church, believed it all, active, faithful, all the things. But I do want to just add one quick anecdote. As a part of all that, I just was looking for content to consume. So I remember pretty quickly after my mission, because I am a big fan of podcasts. So I went to the podcast app app podcast, typed in Mormon, saw Mormon stories, and I was like, perfect stories about Mormons. If Tommy was listening to Mormon stories back in 2015 through 2018, would he have seen the blue logo in a thumbnail that was intentionally created to confuse him? Actually, this is what Tommy would have seen. When he clicked on the episode anytime between 2015 and 2018. Dang, that's a little embarrassing. Also, DesiRanus' claim into the original filing said that the confusion began in 2016. But the only thing that I can find is that the church

8:21began using the light rays design in 2016. But we all know the Mormon stories began using light rays in their own logo back in 2012. So what is this lawsuit about again? All right, so Megan, it's this is a little bit of a confusing case, because there's a difference, a very important difference between people for whatever reason, believing that Mormon stories was faithful versus not faithful. And I can address the allegations that I've intentionally tried to deceive people, that it was faithful versus not faithful. I think they're all false. But that's not what the church is suing Mormon stories podcast me and the open stories foundation about. It's about brand confusion, which is people being deceived that Mormon stories podcast was run by or affiliated with the LDS church. And they're they're claiming that because of the rebrand in in December of 2022,

9:26where a graphic designer chose blue for the logo that people got deceived that Mormon stories podcast was being run by the church. And ironically, they're using Tommy as a centerpiece for their argumentation. But the problem is is that that interview where I interviewed Tommy happened two months before the rebrand. So the rebrand hadn't even been conceived yet, let alone it hadn't happened. So there's no way Tommy would have ever seen a blue logo ever, because it was two months away from being created. The logo that Tommy would have seen would have been gold. But it also wouldn't have happened in 2022, because the episode that Tommy listened to wasn't even on YouTube that he listened to it. He listened to it on the Apple podcast app,

10:28where the logo would have been gold, not blue. So it's totally deceptive. The church is is using this as an example. And and mischaracterizing what Tommy actually said. But don't take my word for it. Tommy actually commented on Julia's video and Tommy writes so weird to be a part of all this, but can confirm that I'm talking about the summer of 2015. I saw that tannish logo and never once thought the show was from the church itself. And again, this comes from and in response to Julia's wonderful short video that also features Jasmine Rappelai doing what I believe is the church's dirty work for them. Now Megan, what are your thoughts?

11:30It seems so sloppy. Like is I just have questions. Is this intentional? You know, or did they just not do their homework? Like I am so meticulous about when I put things together and I check and I double check and I triple check and I'm just one person and I still make mistakes sometimes, but they have an army of lawyers. So what happened here? Like who who did not look at the dates? Because it seems pretty obvious to me and Tommy admits that it was not brand confusion. He was not confused that the church might have produced this podcast because of the color blue. And putting Tommy's reference under the blue logos is in this lawsuit. It's not only incredibly deceptive and they not only literally falsely claim that Tommy claimed he was confused about brand

12:30and the origin of Mormon stories. They invent that out of whole cloth. If you go back and listen to what Tommy said on Mormon stories in October of 2022, it's simply that he thought Mormon stories was faithful. You know, and he thought that Samantha's story was going to end with her staying in the church and it didn't end that way. He doesn't even claim that we did anything deceptive, right? No. Yeah. He thought it was maybe going to be like the the comeback podcast. It's like people had a problem and then they resolved it. Yeah, but but but what's just so bizarre is that they're filing in a federal lawsuit. So they're not just stating this carelessly on a on a social media post or or you know, we're getting apologists to do their dirty work and to see people for them. They're filing these false allegations in a federal lawsuit that that judge Robert Shelby is literally going to read. Like is this indicative of their level of like

13:35privilege where they feel like they're untouchable? It's just yeah, we just we just put all of this out there and people just believe us and they trust us and and then we just win. Yeah, yeah. So you know, it's ironic. I'll just end by saying this that I started Mormon stories podcast in 2005 and a primary motive was when I learned in 2001 that the church had been knowingly deceiving me and the membership for over 200 years. That was one of the main reasons I started Mormon stories podcast to say we've got to start talking openly about the church's history, the church's truth claims, the way the church harms people because the church is hiding its history and its problematic truth claims and the way it hurts people, it's hiding it from the membership. And so I started Mormon stories to try and honestly and openly talk about it. And so it's just ironic that in 2026 the church continues to deceive and lie and manipulate

14:38the world and its membership. And then and then claim that we're the ones who are deceivers as they're literally lying and deceiving people and using their apologists to to to carry their deceptive water for them. I mean, this isn't the saints book. This this is a federal lawsuit. Like they don't get to just put in a little bit of this and a little bit of that and call it good and and know that the members are going to read it and be like, yay. Yeah. Yeah, nobody holds Jasmine accountable. Nobody holds Jackson Paul and Latter-day Lee Saints accountable. Nobody holds these people accountable and the members, I mean, I guess the members don't care about what's true. I mean, maybe maybe some do. But if more if Latter-day Saints care about the truth, they will hold Jasmine and Jackson Paul and and all of the church's apologists and the church's law firms and the church itself accountable if they at all care about truth. And if they don't care about truth, if they don't care about people being smeared and lied about, then they won't do

15:44anything. So we'll see. Jasmine cares about the truth and if the church's PR department cares about the truth and if the church cares about the truth, they will apologize. They will acknowledge these lies and these deceptions and they'll apologize for them. Yep. Let's hope that happens. Yeah. So anyway, we'll be we'll be filing our response in the motion to dismiss in a few weeks. And you know, we'll be calling this out and we'll see if the courts care about truth or if the courts don't care about truth. Let's hope they care about truth. Yeah. All right. Sorry to hijack the beginning of our program, but I'm just a little bit fired up. Yeah. I know I I would be as well. I mean, I'm fired up on your behalf a lot of times when I read this stuff. I'm like, oh my word. And as Mormons, we were taught to be missionaries to shout the truth from the rooftops. And so sometimes it's really hard to hold back. It is. All right. And Julia wants to remind me that this

16:51isn't just our lawsuit. It's everybody's lawsuit. That's true. Everybody cares about the usage of the word Mormon, the ability to criticize the church, not even just criticize the church to talk openly about the church and its history and its truth claims in the way it harms people. Just free speech. People who care about free speech, they should care about this lawsuit because it's about much more than just Mormon source podcast. Push your limits, train with precision, see the results at Equinox, that type of performance loving. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com. Megan, what have you got for us today? So much, John. First, we're going to talk about some really cheerful, wonderful posts that have been deleted because of the way that Mormons responded to them. Then again, we haven't talked about something like this for a few weeks. We're going to talk about a former bishop who was arrested.

17:51We're going to go on to a Salt Lake Tribune article that talks about is the church losing money. Then we will discuss the Hebrew temple that's been in the news for a couple of years, but now the residents there are starting to speak out. Then of course, the Salt Lake Temple Open House, one million tickets sold. All right. Yeah. Well, this is all new to me. I always say, Mormon news podcast is Megan explains the week's news to John to Lynn. So let's get into it. There's some familiar faces. Yeah. So Charlie Bird is a former BYU Cosmo the Cougar author, therapist and prominent gay Latter-day Saint. His husband Ryan Clifford is also a content creator and together, they've become well-known for sharing their marriage and their experience as navigating life as a gay couple within the LDS community. They married in August of 2023. It's just a little background for people who aren't aware of who they are. I didn't realize Charlie Bird was a therapist. That's new to me. I didn't either actually had to look

18:53it up to make sure that that was true. Yeah. When did he get a degree in therapy and when did he get licensed? I didn't look into all of that. I just found his profile on the therapy site where he works. And it was named Evergreen, which I thought was strange. And then I looked up and it stopped. It was strange. Right. It's not connected to the Evergreen of the past that was the conversion therapy evergreen. Yeah. Okay. Should we play the clip? Yes. All right. Let's play the clip. Okay, I'm telling you what we just did. We're pregnant. We just had an appointment with the fertility clinic. It's actually a local clinic that is super like highly rated. So we got in with a doctor and we just had an hour talking to her about like the process what it's going to look like. So the next steps they're going to call us and give us access to the egg donor database to talk about like financial things. We have to get scheduled for some blood work. Just make sure that everything is good to go with us. Not having

19:55a baby. Yeah. I do. I'm so crazy. I mean, that looks like something we're celebrating. I'm so happy for them. Right. Yeah. That post was made in the spring of this year. And we did talk about it on a previous newscast, but this post spurred the rest of what we're going to talk about. So I wanted people to see it. I wanted people to see what Charlie and Ryan were saying and how happy they were and how excited. Yeah. Okay. So what, what, where's the sad part of the story? So this is just a screen grab of the thumbnail from the YouTube video from Latter-Daily Saints. And this particular episode was hosted by Jackson Paul and Hayden Paul. So and if you go to the next, there will be a clip of what they said in reaction to. Check out my interview with Jackson and Hayden Paul and Mormon Stories podcast. I think they embarrassed themselves. I tried to tell them just come on Mormon Stories and tell your story, but they wanted to debate me. So me and Herardo went toe-to-toe with Jackson and Hayden and pretty much everyone I've talked to said they embarrassed themselves.

20:58But not only that, they've gone on to lie in my opinion and smear and misrepresent me and Mormon Stories podcast. They try and call me anti-Christ. I'm not against Christianity. I'm not against Jesus. I just don't believe in a particular interpretation of the atonement. I think there's certain ways to interpret the atonement that are insidious. And I've said that, but they, you know, these dudes lie. And so that's where it starts. But let's see where else it goes. Should I play next clip? Yep. In the family of Proclamation to the world, it says, the family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to his eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. That was like, it hit so much harder entitled. It's like, they're to human

22:03to right. Yes. All right. What do you think? This is just the kind of response that Charlie and Ryan are getting to an announcement that they were super excited about where these two guys are coming out publicly and saying, you don't have a right to do this because your child has a right to a mother. And I just find it disturbing that their view is so binary that they can't allow for someone else to have joy and for someone else to be good parents. I mean, I far be it for me to defend the Paul brothers, but they're just quoting the family proclamation and the Mormon Church's stance. That's what I found is these apologists just parent whatever the church says or believes. They are incapable of disagreeing with the church or having their own opinions in many instances. So I don't know how much to blame them versus just doing the church's bidding. What do you think, Megan?

23:08Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I do they know where the family proclamation came from. What it's backstory is. I didn't wonder that. And I wonder if he would even make a difference because the family proclamation came about because gay marriage was being put on the ballot in Hawaii and or presented to the courts in Hawaii. And the church wanted to be able to file, I believe it was an amicus brief, so that they could support striking down gay marriage, but they had to have a doctrinal position. And so they wrote and concocted the family proclamation to the world in response to gay marriage, possibly being legalized in Hawaii. So the proclamation of the family started as a legal brief. Yes. It's not wild. Right. And now it's this God said, God said, and entitled and they're they're so sure of themselves that they're happy to parade it out.

24:13And weirdly, we now know that women are leaving the church at a higher rate than men, or at least young women are leaving the church at a higher rate than men. And so the more the church promotes the proclamation, I believe, the more they're just going to accelerate. They're going to turn the Mormon church into an in-sale church because they're driving out all their women with what many believe is a misogynistic declaration. Yeah. Yeah. With these really hardline distinctions between what men are allowed to do and what women are allowed to do. Absolutely. Yeah. Women in church. Yes. Maybe we do want to have children, but we don't want it to be our only purpose for existing. Yeah. The man presides and provides and protects and the women nurture the children and stay home and be presided over. Like how is that going to fly in 2026 and beyond? Well, obviously it's not. Yeah. So what is Greg Madsen who we've

25:14also had a more mysterious how does he play into this? So he also, but this is just a precursor to his clip. He's going to say this is against everything we believe in. See if you go to the next one, it's a good one. He's right. He's right. Yeah. All right, let's play the clip. Charlie Bird, right? Who is held up as kind of this icon, this gay icon in the church, faithful icon, that was speaking in fire sides. He was invited to stake, stake firesides for the youth, especially. And here's the thing is that then you get someone like that that is the youth, for example, follow him on social media. And they go to a social media accounts and they see his interpretation that he gives of the family proclamation. And they see his life with his boyfriend. Now his husband, right? And they see him, okay, he's active, he goes to church, he believes in

26:17the church, but he's married to a man. And now they want a child. And so they're going to adopt a child. And you see all of these hearts on social media supporting all of this. And you say in yourself, well, wait a minute, this is against everything we believe in. This is against the church, but oh, it's inclusive. It's inclusive. It doesn't matter that it's not part of the order of God, you know, the order of God and the family of God. It's inclusive. And that's what really matters. And if we have enough empathy, then the Christ like thing would be to support things like this, to support inclusiveness, regardless of truth, regardless of order. And that's a little bit concerning to me. All right, Megan, what's wrong with that video? It's hard for me to see these because it makes me see the church in this way where they're

27:24trying to kind of play both sides where they're allowing Charlie and Ryan, because they know what they're doing, right? The top leadership is not unaware that Charlie and Ryan still participate in their award. So they're allowing that because they know it's very public. And then they also allow Jackson and Hayden and Greg to go on and say, this goes against everything that we believe in. And the church just kind of gets to pull back and allow all of this messiness to happen. I just feel so disingenuous to me. It feels like the same thing, like they're lying, like they're obviscating a little bit. And it gives Greg, he thinks he has this power because God is on his side to say things that like I think Greg in his heart is a good person, but then he can get in his car and make this video that's so hateful because he thinks that the church and God endorse it. It's actually kind of sad because the God that Greg worships isn't a God that I would want to

28:30to give my allegiance to because a God who can't celebrate Charlie and Ryan in this moment doesn't seem like a really loving God to me. Julia writes, he's in his car like he was desperate to just make this hateful video. And I know Greg, I don't see him as a hateful guy. I do think he is a victim of the LDS church and like you've acknowledged and I think like we've covered for years on Mormon stories podcast, the church is the author of this confusion because as I understand it, Charlie and his husband Ryan, as far as I know, they're still actively attending a ward as I understand it, they still have responsibilities in their ward. They are legally same-sex married and they're clearly public about their faith, but also what they're doing. And the church does a discipline them not to be clear, I don't want the church to discipline them, I want the

29:30church to leave them alone. But of course, Greg is confused and even people like Jacob Hanson and and word radio and and the Paul Brothers, of course they're confused because the church is in effect speaking out of both sides of its mouth here by on the one hand claiming that this is evil that you know, same-sex marriage is wrong and evil that so many people have been communicated for same-sex marriage, you know, or the like and yet the church is no longer disciplining these public figures and letting them go. So I don't know, I don't, I'm sad that this is how the Paul Brothers and Greg and others want to spend their time in their energy, but I put all the responsibility and the blame on the church for confusing people. Well, and then the church would say, but we say to love everyone. Yeah. But do they mean that? Do they mean that because if they did

30:33what they still be getting up in that same conference and reiterating the proclamation on the family? Somehow they think those two things can coexist and I just don't think that they can. Push your limits, train with precision, see the results. At Equinox that's high performance loving. Iconic spaces that inspire personal training backed by real data, unlimited group fitness classes from yoga and Pilates to strength and conditioning. Elevate your post-performance ritual with sonas, steam rooms, cold plunges and more. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com. So what's this next clip about? So this is Ashley Ruth. She wrote an article in the Cougar Chronicle and she was just another person that responded to their video and I'll read what she

31:33wrote. I have thought carefully about how I want to approach this. Oh, wait, this isn't the one from the Cougar Chronicle. Sorry, this she wrote a substack. She said, I have thought carefully about how I want to approach this claim because I know it's going to cut to the center. Charlie and Ryan are not living within a covenant marriage sealed by God's priesthood. They have a legal contract authorized by the state of Utah. This is the difference between time and all eternity until death do as part. Furthermore, any child brought into their home through surrogacy will not be born into the covenant and cannot be sealed to both men in the temple. As Latter-day Saints, we cannot bypass the importance of God's ordinances by appealing to all kinds of ways to build a family, not if we truly believe in exaltation. What are your thoughts on that? It's just I do wish people would leave them alone. If you can't be happy for them, like go go find your own happiness and be there. Yeah, there's there's millions of people that who aren't faithful Latter-day Saints or who

32:36are part active or part believing who make all sorts of decisions that aren't fully aligned with the church's doctrine and theology at present day. But why do we have to spend our time and energy as faithful Latter-day Saints demeaning their decisions? Like, okay, even if you're Orthodox Mormon with what you believe is the ideal, why are you denigrating people that make different decisions? Even if they're active Latter-day Saints, they're active Latter-day Saints that drink coffee or take mushrooms or use cannabis or have tattoos or earrings or don't go to church or don't believe. Why would you why would as a Christian and as a faithful Latter-day Saint, would you spend your time judging and calling people out, especially when it's sacred decisions around marriage and child

33:38rearing and child bearing? Why? Because does she think that Charlie's going to read that and be like, oh, I think we made the wrong choice. This one's sub-stack article said, I mean, that's not even realistic. The fact that she's writing about that publicly says a lot about her feelings and very little about whether Charlie is going to see that and make a different choice. It's like she has to wear her badge of, I'm defending God's honor against what Charlie and Ryan are doing. And weirdly, this advice we're giving Latter-day Saints would help Latter-day Saints not accelerate the mass hemorrhaging that they're currently experiencing. Like, if the church were to take Megan's advice, Julie's advice and John Delin's advice, they would literally slow their

34:39hemorrhaging. So we're actually trying to help the church in effect not lose as many members by giving this advice because there's no way this is helping the church. No, no. Because what they're doing is they're stopping people from having joy in their life. Like, if you can see what Ryan and Charlie are doing and be just sublimely happy about that, then you don't have to carry around all that anger and doubt that they're now associating with it. The church says that it wants people to have happiness and joy. And yet they're taking the situation that should just be that and making it something else. And Megan, I don't know. It's been a while since I've read the Bible or the book Mormon. But did Jesus say something about judging? I'm trying to remember. I think there's something that comes to mind. Can you remind us? Right. Judge not less G.V. Judge. Oh, that's what Jesus said

35:42to his followers. Right. Can we go to Uktor who said, don't judge me because I sin differently than you? Yeah. Like which I don't think what they're doing is a sin. Don't know. But if they're listening to their own prophets, I don't know why the church doesn't shut this down because they're not harming Charlie. I mean, they are harming Charlie and Ryan. But they're also harming themselves. They're not doing themselves any favor. All right. What's the next? This one's from the Kugger Chronicle. And I thought it was really interesting from this scale's Instagram. She's definitely got the new garments on, I suppose. Yeah. So she said, I recognize the deep natural yearning Charlie bird feels to be apparent as a single woman in her mid 20s. I can relate. But adults need to do hard things so children don't have to. Adults must sacrifice their own priorities to protect children's rights and well-being. Charlie bird does not have a right to be a father on his own terms. He does not

36:44have a right to derive his future child of its mother. And Latter-day Saints should not celebrate his attempts to do so. Charlie bird doesn't have the right to have a child by surrogacy, really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she was hard-lined. Like I need to read through this like four or five times to really sift out all of the her view is just so black and white. Rights? Like what are what are rights come into play here? Like spiritual rights, civil rights? Like what rights is she even talking about? She's talking about the family proclamation rights. Definitely not human rights. That's not rights. That's just beliefs. That's not rights. Right. But like my Mormon brand thought they were rights, right? Because God superseded government and earthly rules. These people need to go to civics class. They need to actually attend

37:52political science courses or legal courses. They just need more education. Well, and maybe just leave provo sometimes. There's a difference between right and beliefs. All right. What's the next clip? So this is Skye Sorensen who is a gay Latter-day Saint. He's in a mixed orientation mixed orientation marriage. So the next clip is from him. Right. I'm scared to see it. When Latter-day Saints celebrate a same-sex couple intentionally creating a family in which a child by design will not have both a mother and a father, we're communicating something about what we believe marriage and family are for, especially to young Latter-day Saints experiencing same-sex attraction. We're telling them whether the doctrine applies to them too. And I worry that we're teaching young Latter-day Saints that compassion requires celebration. All right. Megan. It's hard for me with people who, you know, however they identify themselves gay,

39:02he says same-sex attraction, who have decided to stay in the church and then think that that needs to be everybody's path. I can see that Skye is doing what he has chosen to do. And I wish he would leave space for people who are making choices in the other direction who couldn't get into an oriental mixed orientation marriage or had just didn't want to, who knew that that wouldn't be good for them or their mental health and who have decided to marry someone that they are not just in love with, but also attracted to. I mean, I know that attraction comes on a scale and there are people who a mixed orientation marriage is not going to work for. And I wish that Skye and others like him, I've seen others would allow for that because they'll say things like this is the, you know, I pray and I read my scriptures and this was right for me. Well, allow for someone else to pray and read their scriptures and do what is right for them. And for theirs to be just as valid

40:06of a revelation of a personal revelation. Yeah. In my PhD dissertation, I surveyed 1,612 current and former LGBT Latter-day Saints. And one of the findings we had, which was most stark, was that 70% of the mixed orientation marriages of the people who had entered into mixed orientation marriages in our study had already experienced a worse. So that's a 70% failure rate on mixed orientation marriages, but it's worse than that. Those, the LGBT members of mixed orientation marriages had extremely high levels of depression, of internalized homophobia. They had quality of life ratings comparable to people with lupus. And that's not even surveying the straight spouses that are married to people who don't find them attractive. So it is just literally irresponsible. I believe for

41:15queer Mormons in mixed orientation marriages to hold themselves out as, as in any way, role models for what people should, you know, what people might consider. In my opinion, mixed orientation marriage, Mormon mixed orientation marriages should have a big red warning label saying mixed orientation marriages lead to depression and divorce and quality of life ratings lower than people with lupus. But that's not what Sky tells people, you know. Right. Anyway, but aside from that, what about the 11th article of faith? Like I was Mormon enough to remember what it says. And it says we believe in, we believe in what following the dictates of our own conscience. Yeah, we believe in being subject to the dictates of our own conscience. Same privilege. Let the worship how aware or what they may. Why are we denigrating as

42:15faithful at it? It's saying people's decisions. Yeah. Well, because there's a thing in the church where you can receive personal revelation, but you can only receive personal revelation for something the brethren have already said that that corroborates something the brethren have already said. Yeah. All right. This is really riling me up today, Megan. What a Charlie have to say about this reaction. Yeah. So then after, I mean, this has been going on because Charlie and Ryan posted that video in, I think it was April or May, I put spring because I couldn't remember the exact date. But so this has been going on for a while. These videos have been coming out on faithful social media for months. And finally, Charlie came out on Instagram and said, I'm genuinely sad that something I've been so excited to share has reached this point. And I'm sorry to those of you who have been following along and wanted to continue being part of it here. Please don't go searching for or engaging with the people who sent these messages. And he's going to show those in a second. I've reported the accounts that needed to be reported. And several already appear to have been

43:16removed. I'm also planning to take this post down in about 48 hours. I wanted to explain why I'm taking this change. But I don't want these messages or this kind of rhetoric to live any longer or travel any farther than necessary to any LGBTQ plus people who see these screenshots. Please don't let them scare you or make you feel like this is representative of how people will treat you. I'm in a very unusual position. And sometimes that means I see the absolute worst of what sad people have to say. The overwhelming majority of people I encounter in my actual life are kind, loving, and good. Please don't let a handful of cruel voices feel bigger than they are. And then he attributes the artwork. What a beautiful response. Yeah, I know. I was like having some feelings while I was reading that. Like, and that's why this is so hard. Because when I saw his video the first time, I was just genuinely excited. And then to see all of this awful stuff happen. And for

44:21this thing that people celebrate, you know, they have these big parties and tell people that they're pregnant for that to be marred by this for them. Like it's just devastating. Yeah, it is. It's sad. I'm curious. Well, let's go ahead and finish that. I have a question for you, Megan. Okay. Let's see what's next these next comments. So we don't have to focus on this too much. These are screenshots of some of the comments that he got saying you're discussing. It responds to that. No, these were comments that he's been getting along the way. The reason that he wrote the post, these are some of the comments. And it even shows they were comments that were made on Jackson and Hayden's video. They were comments that were made on Skies video. And that's why I showed those. These are faithful, likely, faithful Mormons making comments. Yeah. And will you read some of them for those who are listening who can't read it?

45:22I will try. One of them says you and your disgusting eugenic practices shouldn't be allowed to step foot into a church building. I hope you either repent and divorce or both blank before bringing a motherless child into the world. Horrific. And these are believing Latter-day Saints up, up, up, apparently. Yeah. I mean, you think so. Yeah. There's one that says, let's send all of you homos to an island. No woman to force carry your designer babies. One generation in the world would be fixed. Another one says disgusting, depraved, and then F words like you don't deserve to live. These are Christians. These are presumably Latter-day Saints. Like the church not see the bigotry that is emerging from these Mormon apologists and social media influencers that the church's

46:25wealthy donors are supporting through these arms-length nonprofits that are springing up. Right. It's really bad. Like one of them says, I hope your surrogate miscarries. I mean, there are just no words. There are little words. No, it's it's horrific and they've been subject to this for months. This has been going on since April. I mean, it's been going on for their whole life certainly, but it has intensified. Push your limits, train with precision, see the results. At Equinox, that's high performance loving. Iconic spaces that inspire. Personal training backed by real data, unlimited group fitness classes from yoga and Pilates to strength and conditioning. Elevate your post-performance ritual with sonas, steam rooms, cold plunges, and more. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com.

47:31So what's the slide about? So this is the rest of Charlie's post. He says, over the past few weeks, I've received messages that have gone far beyond the criticism or negativity I'm used to receiving online. Some of them have been genuinely frightening and have made me concerned for my safety. Yeah, that's horrific. You can keep going because we can keep going. I love sharing authentically and I've enjoyed bringing you along as we navigate the process of starting our family, but sharing this particular part of my life has attracted more negative attention than I have the bandwidth to carry. People I don't know have begun making content specifically targeting me in our family building process and using what I share as material for their conversations. As that content has circulated, the attention coming my way has become increasingly extreme. Because of that, Instagram no longer feels like a safe place for me to share this part of my life. I've archived previous posts about the process and for the foreseeable future I will not be sharing

48:34any more updates here. I plan to continue sharing some aspects of our journey on my sub-stack blog, but I'll likely be putting more of those posts behind a paywall. I don't love having to put barriers around something I wanted to share openly, but right now it feels like the best way to limit the exposure that has made this feel unsafe. The people behaving this way likely represent a very small number. The overwhelming majority of you have been kind, curious, supportive and genuinely excited for us, and I don't want the actions of a few to overshadow that. But I feel a responsibility to protect myself, my husband, and the family we are working so hard to build. So this is where I've landed. No, he's no longer going to be sharing his journey on Instagram and is going to now do it on sub-stack behind a paywall. Is this Charlie's words as well? No, this was something that I saw when I was a sunstone and I couldn't remember where, but I sent myself a note of it and I thought it applied to this situation perfectly. When hateful rhetoric

49:38becomes normalized, someone eventually takes it literally. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, Megan, this is a really tough question because some would say it's hypocritical for you or for us to even discuss this story because clearly, if you care about Charlie, Charlie saying, stop talking about me, stop talking about this story, this is harming me and my family. So how making do you think through that and knowing that you genuinely care about LGBTQ people and care about Charlie and Ryan, how do you make the decision to even cover a story like this versus do what it appears like Charlie's asking everyone to do it and not talk about it? Yeah, it's hard because I always try to have this balance between bringing something to people's attention and putting it in as part of like a historical record,

50:39like this is where we're at right now in the church. This, you know, the family proclamation came out in the 90s and in 2026, this is what it's doing to real people's lives and balancing that with the love and concern and privacy that Charlie and Ryan deserve. At the same time, they have been very public people for a very long time. So it's trying to have this balance and that's what I was talking to Julia about this before we started because even when I made the thumbnail, I was like, I want people to understand the level of vitriol that has been put towards them, but I don't want it to be the last thing that they remember because Charlie and Ryan's story is about love and bringing a child into that is about them sharing that love with a child that they then get to nurture and

51:41grow with and I think that's so beautiful. So we in our human lives have to understand that there is really bad things that happen. We can't just be oblivious to that. We have to be aware of it so that we can stand up for the people who are at the receiving end of that and the focus should always be love. So it's just trying to carry that in a balance. And what about just falling with Charlie seems to be suggesting Megan and just not not talking about this stuff when it seems like he's asking us not to? Well, I think going forward we can just focus on the love. I think bringing the story to attention is important because it's been all over the internet and these apologists have had a lot six months or however long it's been to spread their ideas and I want to push back and say if you're going to talk about Charlie going forward then it sure is hell better be

52:44celebrating the joy and love that they share and the excitement that they have for this new chapter in their life. Love it. Well, I'll just share my perspective too. A couple of years ago when Harado was working closely with me, Harado's gay and Harado and I had covered years and years and years of decades of the church communicating gay people, lesbian people, queer people, same-sex married couples. We all know about the November 2015 policy where the church made same-sex marriage and excommunicable offense and mandatory which made same-sex marriage more of a sin than pedophilia and rape and espouse of abuse. So we've all lived through that and more importantly the LGBTQ Mormons have lived through that for decades and then all the sudden you know Charlie and Ryan very publicly announced they got married and then we learned that the Charlie and Ryan were attending a ward and had a calling.

53:49When generations of LGBTQ Mormons had been excommunicated for the same behavior and the church seemed to be allowing it and so Harado wanted to find out if this was true and so Harado you know went and found out for himself that they were actually because he didn't want to report on something false or untrue so Harado went to see for himself that they were attending and when Harado spoke about that just people lost their minds and I did not ask Harado to do that. I did not send him out there that was all Harado's decision as a gay Mormon and the equality Utah equality you know Arizona equality Wyoming Dale denounced me for Harado's decision to you know talk about this stuff and all I can say is I've always been super happy that Charlie and Ryan

54:50could be faithful Mormons and be same sex married that's what I've been wanting for 20 plus years is for the church to stop going after and punishing LGBTQ Mormons and to stop forcing LGBTQ Mormons to choose between who they love and their faith and but I just felt like if Charlie and Ryan were going to talk publicly about their stories then there needed to be a broader public discussion about what the church isn't is not allowing for if we're know the reason then for all the LGBTQ Mormons that have been communicated and punished so I only want good things to happen to Charlie and Ryan but if they are going to be public figures and publicly tell everyone that they're faithful believing Mormons attending church and getting same sex married and having surrogate children then then they're inviting public discussion they're not inviting bigotry which I think we're denouncing

55:58but you know if anyone knows it's me that once you enter the public fray you're going to get attacked and that's just what that's just what you experience when you choose to be a public figure so I denounce all the haters and all the faithful Mormons that are bigoted towards Charlie and Ryan I denounce that bigotry and that's why I feel like this this needs to be discussed and it's honestly if Charlie and Ryan are saying we're going to talk publicly about all our experiences as faithful gay same sex married Mormons having surrogate children we're going to talk publicly about that but no one should talk about it that that just doesn't it doesn't make sense so I denounce all bigotry I denounce you know all the hate speech and I just say if Charlie and Ryan don't want people

56:58to talk about them then they shouldn't have a social media presence where they're talking about all this stuff I think yes yeah yeah once you become a public figure you will be discussed publicly and once you make your faithful Mormonism as a same sex married couple seeking children public this is what you're inviting so yeah they should denounce the bigotry I don't think they can reasonably ask people not to talk about this yeah yeah I don't think so either yeah but I wish them well and I wish all the haters to to go silent you know absolutely yeah all right anything else about this story should we move on let's move on move on all right well it wouldn't be a week of Mormon news without another former Mormon bishop being accused of sexual abuse so who's it this week Megan former bishop found with child sexual abuse material on phone after

58:03arrest during a prostitution sting that's the headline all right and who's reporting that that's ABC yeah news in Utah mm-hmm yeah so then I actually read through the affidavit of probable cause and the arrest reports and this is where I got that information from so the arrest was Eric Hans Monson Eric was a bishop in the case Creek Ward that actually I got that that little bit of information from Rebecca Biblioteca in late in Utah from September 11th 2011 to January 1st 2017 at the time of his arrest he was a Sunday school teacher arrested August 17th 2026 undercover prostitution operation police say he agreed to pay $200 for sex arrested after arriving at the meeting location police obtained a warrant to search his phone so that's how it uh that's how it began is because of the prostitution and of course the name Monson makes me already immediately wonder

59:06whether he's related to Thomas S. Monson but I did look into that and I couldn't find a direct relation so maybe it's like a yeah yeah cousins child or something yeah yeah all right what else about the story so when they searched his phone they found conversations involving prostitution escort and hookup websites numerous kick conversations and groups police say some messages appear to have been deleted and investigators obtained an expanded search warrant and that's from his facebook page so it says I'm here to light the world that's a little banner that the church put out during Christmas time for everyone who was a member to put on their facebook pages okay all right what's the next slide about so um he was charged with three second degree felony counts and this is where the expanded phone search came in because they busted him for the prostitution but when then they looked at his phone they found images of children on there and actually when they asked him

1:00:09about it he said he has his entire life fantasized about teenage girls and then as he got older it just never went away so prosecutors alleged at least three child sex abuse material images found on his device children depicted were allegedly younger than 10 and the charges were filed August 28 and right so then in my mind I had to tie it back to the fact that he admits that he's fantasized about teenagers and he was a bishop and and just so people know I don't think it's unfair like I'll always say this on Mormon stories our goal is never to go after people it's after institutions and what I'm most concerned about is number one the teaching that once a bishop owls a bishop that's the Mormon churches you know teachings not mine and that bishops have the gift of discernment that they're called by God that you should obey them I think that's dangerous um and uh and so it's

1:01:14more the church's teachings around the gift of discernment and that leaders are called by God that they speak for God that's you know and then the church you know the bishops are I think the bishops are approved by the prophet when they're called so um that's what I'm targeting along with the fact that bishops get to be alone with 12 year old girl or 12 year old boys and ask them secret questions about their sexual behavior those are the things I'm most and that the church uses its attorneys to protect sexual predators um and to pressure victims to forgive the predators and to not report uh sexual abuse to law enforcement those are the things that I care about Megan. Yes yes and that's why the distinction that he was a bishop is so important because bishops are were taught that they have the gift of discernment when they're not just the bishop himself but when

1:02:16he's called the stake president knew that he was gonna supposed to be the bishop so then he called him to be the bishop and I don't think that any parents sending their child into an interview with him even consider the fact that he might be fantasizing about their child I wouldn't have thought about that as a parent it wasn't something that was on my radar. This is enough to let every you know the fact that a former Mormon bishop admits that his whole life he's fantasized about sex with children should make every Mormon parent from now until the end of time not allow their children to be alone with the Mormon bishop. Yep period. Yeah period. Push your limits train with precision see the results at equinox that type performance living iconic spaces that inspire personal training backed by real data unlimited group fitness classes

1:03:16from yoga and pilates to strength and conditioning elevate your post performance ritual with sonnas, steam rooms, cold plunges and more everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at equinox start today at equinox.com. All right let's let's continue. Yeah so this is from the affidavit of probable cause the current offense is a felony there is a substantial evidence there is substantial evidence to support the charge and through clear and convincing evidence would constitute a substantial danger to another individual or to the community or is likely to flee the jurisdiction of the court if released on bail. And going through Eric's phone it is very clear that Eric is an active member in his community and several conversations found Eric is claiming to either be a church group leader or used to be recently bishop of the LDS church and I believe this composed a substantial risk to the community specifically the children of the community as he is claiming to hold a trusted position and probably has common contact with several children in his community with the charges

1:04:20listed above an Eric admitting to be that he fantasizes about 15 year old female children I believe he poses a risk to the community and should be held without bail. Yeah that's super disturbing. Megan I'm curious you have an opinion about why so many of these child sexual predators or bishops or former bishops like it just seems like they're disproportionately bishops. Right. What is it about current and former Mormon bishops that makes them seeming really so greater likely to be predators? I don't know I think it's the whole like there are so many factors that play into that like growing up in purity culture and being sexually repressed and how that comes out when these people become adults and then this guy like he was also seemed very charismatic. People only had nice things to say about him on his Facebook page and just he's been

1:05:20hiding this likely or being ashamed about us since he was a teenager and so showing up in these ways where people really enjoyed being with him and so to become a bishop it's like he's he's presented himself so well for so long maybe to hide this as a as a reaction to hiding this thing that he fell ashamed about and so yeah to get called into the bishopric would just be the next step for someone who's good looking and charismatic and you know friends with everybody. It is interesting though I'm sure there are a lot of psychological reasons that this continues to be bishops and stake presidents. Yeah and I'll just say what I say often which is when a church is founded by a leader Joseph Smith who literally married 14 year old girls 15 year old girls 16 year old girls 17 year old girls mother daughter pairs sister pairs and by the way Brigham Young and Hebersey Kimball also were polyandrists they also married child brides when you're first several

1:06:28you know church presidents or prophets can be fairly classified as sexual predators of teenage girls can you be surprised that subsequent leaders will exhibit the same behavior. No I mean I think people are surprised but I don't know that they should be surprised yeah sadly yeah it's just it's it's the way it's the path of the church a lot of times. I will look forward to the day where this isn't happening every week because I don't want this to be the the the church I'm associated with I don't want I don't want to be associated with the church of sexual predators so I hope the church cleanses this up. Yes absolutely and I think bringing it to light over and over and over again hopefully we'll push them in that direction I mean it's been happening for years but yeah I personally believe that one of the reasons the church is suing me and Mormon stories podcast is because we cover too much stories like this

1:07:32that's my personal opinion yeah I wouldn't be surprised it it definitely is not a good look for them yeah and speaking you're not a good look on to the next story last week we covered the churches multi-billion dollar you know real estate portfolio the top one or two a private owner of real estate in the entire United States what's the next headline of this week Megan well they have all this money but it doesn't seem they're managing it all that well so the LDS's church's stock portfolio is up by billions but is it's strategy losing money over time hmm tell me more so the value of a huge investment portfolio managed for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew by seven point one billion dollars over the spring ending at sixty point eight billion at the end of June buried as newly disclosed numbers from the second

1:08:33quarter though there seems to be a broader downward trend managers at inside and peak advisors the church's investment arm appear to have lost large amounts of money since 2020 by trying to second-guess markets and coming up short so basically there I don't understand this fully but there is the S&P 500 which is a basic investment strategy and the church is using that most of the time but when they veer from it they seem to not do a good job and then their investments suffer am I saying that right John I mean the way I'm not a stockbroker either but the way I understand it is the S&P 500 is like an index of 500 the top you know companies in the United States that they recommend you invest in and so you can literally just buy an S&P index fund and you're going to get a fantastic return I'll be I'll be honest I've been investing in the S&P 500 with my realist with my retirement funds for a long long time and it's just a very simple way to get a

1:09:37great return and you don't have to assume extra risk and you don't have to pay expensive you know brokers to try and do fancy things you just buy the S&P index funds and you do great so that's that's how I understand it so what what what are you learning that the investment arm of the church the people who run that are not sticking to the S&P yeah inside peak and when and when they don't they're losing money so they should just follow the S&P and then they would be making more money they're taking this siding and they're investing it and they're not being super wise about it so you're saying the church is paying people to lose money for the church yeah likely paying them well I would think yes yes because they could do what you're doing they could just put it in an S&P fund and go and they would have made more money that way and not have to pay expensive people to lose the church money okay what is this slide so this is from the

1:10:40widows might report in the Salt Lake Tribune and S&P can church wealth since 2020 and S&P returns are 18.5 percent below what they could have been by simply matching the S&P 500 and S&P's disclosed US stock portfolio is only one piece of the church's wealth which I think is important to remember estimated total church investments 231 billion dollars at the end of 2025 estimated total church wealth 321 billion that's an increase of 28 billion in one year so they still are making money obviously but they could have made more money if they had just gone the simple route and also like you said not paid people yeah and we covered this last week that Mormon General Thordes were on record telling people in Latin America and the Philippines that they should pay their tithing before they buy shoes or buy food to eat if they're hungry and they're doing that sitting on over 300 billion dollars of wealth and we know that the church

1:11:41intentionally hid its wealth from the membership because they were afraid the church members would stop paying tithing if they found out how wealthy the church was which is they were fined the five million dollars I think in total by the securities and exchange commission for what I would call fraud I think people need to remember that yes yeah it's important don't don't forget how they did that the next slide just shows with this tithing in mind that they're asking people to pay instead of feeding their children these are their top seven holdings of one billion or more there's going to be some companies we all recognize there yeah in video google apple microsoft amazon meta and micron and then the other ones where they have 500 million to just over a billion elaylilie jp morgan chase mastercard tesla advanced micro devices applied materials united united health group exon mobile oracle in johnson and johnson and i i've also heard the church is

1:12:41heavily invested in like the military industrial complex all these firms that make bombs and jets and and weapons that kill people yes yeah and i've seen non-lds influencers who watch the stock market comment on that it's really interesting to see it from an outside perspective we should we should include that in an in an is report mega okay yeah yeah i can hear how and tear what's the yeah yes yes yeah um uh so what's the next slide this isn't going to be as good for people who aren't watching but it's just a visual representation of how much a trillion dollars is yeah so it has a hundred dollar bill what a stack of ten thousand dollars looks like then a million then a hundred million then a billion and then a trillion and and a trillion is a couple of miles worth of dollar bills and you can see the tiny little person over to the side like that's what the church will likely be worth yeah according to the widow's fight between 2040 and 2050 yep in the next 15 20 30 years the

1:13:48Mormon church will be a trillion dollar church and the members are like woohoo Jesus are you money for the second coming you know yeah i remember that part in the new test on it oh anyway that's a great story thank you for covering it Megan yeah it's always good to not forget about their massive wealth really quickly i want to share a couple super chats we want to thank everyone who donates through the super chat function or just donates two Mormon stories the Opus stories foundation uh Steve taveniere uh says nice work julia he's referring to julia's video about the lawsuit nice word julia you caught them in a line no surprise been lying for the Lord since Joseph Smith thanks for the super chat any of you who want your comments to be shown can share them as super chats as well um also thank you Christina Cruz 6580 for the super chat as well

1:14:48i do want to remind people that the website for this podcast is mormannews.com and there's a donate button at mormannews.com and if you want to donate specifically to my and maegan's project here it's still a pilot technically but we're we're trying to cover Mormon news weekly um you can donate specifically to that project at mormannews.com click on the donate button and we use that money to pay maegan maegan and uh and julia and brooklyn and me and um just to make all this possible so please support the mormannews podcast and thanks to everyone who supports morman stories podcast as well any comments on that maegan just keep us going i think this is fun for me and i've gotten a lot of positive feedback about sharing the news here so yes you could also subscribe to morman stories podcast and also subscribe to generally and quotable on youtube and instagram and pichark and facebook as well yet there is enough morman news for everybody to report on it yeah and we love

1:15:53we're like a bit of a teca and mormanish podcast and ready for morman to build real mormanism live morman news uh morman news what is that morman news the morman newscast yeah and then also neem all the morman does a great job and then analyzing mormanism so great great outlets all around we support them all all right what's the next story so red ledges residents break silence ahead of Utah Supreme Court heber valley temple arguments so i see what red ledges is it's where they're trying to build the heber valley temple this has been ongoing for years the church bought land there and proposed the temple and the residents fought back and they haven't they've been fighting courts so they haven't been speaking openly so this is going to tell us their side of the story why they are opposing a temple of that size in that location i'm going to assume the majority of red ledges residents are faithful at any sayings do you think that's uh uh yeah i mean heber

1:16:56yeah heber is very a very morman part of Utah huh all right so tells more so wasatch county approved the heber city temple despite its location in a residential zone where new developments may be 35 feet from the natural grade the well lit temple is set to be 210 feet tall and 88 000 square feet okay all right so that was what spurred the the pushback so this is Bruce van deuce and spokesperson for the residents he said we believe that creates a troubling precedent what certainty do zoning laws actually provide we are simply saying established land use laws cannot be selectively waived for one property in one neighborhood the same rules apply to everyone so he just doesn't want the church to get special treatment huh i would think faithful at any sayings want the church to get special treatment but we don't know his religious affiliation mm-hmm no i go ahead oh i i was looking into his background but there was there was not a lot to find

1:18:00well this reminds me of all the temple uh holo belu that that rebeca and landen and nemo have been covering for a couple of years now the church using its power and money and influence to to just seems to be run rough shot over local um zoning laws and municipal policies yes yeah and i've worked in city government and the zoning laws are there for a reason they don't just somebody doesn't just write one and throw it up there they go through long approval processes and they have to get community feedback and so for the church to go in and just honestly it looks like they just do whatever they want it really isn't respectful of the communities that they're in so what's the next clip or the next slide yeah the utah supreme court ruled in February that construction on the heber valley temple could continue that decision came after years of legal back and forth between red ledges residence wasech county the church of jesus christ

1:19:02of latter day saints and fourth district court judge jennifer maybe who originally presided over the case sam penrod media relations manager for the church said the courts decision this year was a welcome one once completed this temple will bless the lives of latter day saints in the heber valley by providing a sacred house of worship closer to their homes penrod said in february hmm you can provide a sacred place of worship that's not that tall can people not feel the spirit if the building isn't over 50 feet tall it logically it does not make a lot of sense and for these residents they're like just follow the law yeah so you've got a clip from tomas says monson what's this clip about um i just just play it because i think he's telling us how the church should act in this situation never that a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved

1:20:05all right what does that like the church the church thinks this is this huge problem like we just have to build this temple and if we don't we're going to give up our legal rights but they're alienating not just the general public but their own members and it so we've seen this happen in texas is happening in bakersfield california it actually surprised me when it started happening in utah yeah well the thing now i'm surprised i was that anyone would ever dare speak up against the church in utah that's what surprises me yes that's what i'm saying like of you know in texas sure but in their own backyard they're getting pushback from people who are like go ahead and build your temple just follow the laws of the land i feel like you have an article of faith that maybe says you should do that i mean i honestly think i this is my theory and i'm curious if you agree or have a different perspective you know i remember the threefold mission of the church proclaim the gospel perfect the saints and redeem the dead and we all know that the missionary

1:21:13program is in relative freefall we've covered that here on the mormon news podcast previously even though the church has claimed me more missionaries than ever more baptisms than never we know the church is shrinking in in the united states and it's it's hemorrhaging world wide except in places like africa where members can be in effect deceived and bribed into joining they're not getting informed consent the church is using education and money is a bribe to purport people to join but but the church is let's just face it the church is in decline they're selling chapels all over utah all over california um and it's just been the birth rate that's been keeping the church alive in the united states and even that is in freefall um so the the church can't really focus on perfect the saints because the saints are leaving in droves and they can't really

1:22:15you know really emphasize um proclaim the gospel because the missionary program is in freefall if the church is being honest about the numbers and its failures so all the church can do and really legitimately claim success over is to use its massive wealth to buy temples and to get whatever members it has left to to do these dead sterile meaningless ordinances for dead people that if anyone spent a minute to think about how silly it is the god is having human spend their time when they could be delivering clean water to people teaching people literacy helping relieve the world of famine and poverty and disease they're literally dressing up in white and going to these temples to do fake baptisms for dead people that don't need any ordinance work done that's all the church can do to really produce any meaningful numbers of success and

1:23:18these temples are just gross, gaudy, worldly, materialistic displays of wealth and that's why the church wants them to be as big and as gaudy and as bright and as obnoxious as possible because it's the only symbol the church can advance of actual quote success and progress i know that's a really harsh take so tell me if you see it differently Megan no it actually makes sense and i was trying not to laugh because it is somewhat humorous to think of a church that has all of this wealth as humorous and it's sad and what they're doing is they're making white clothing and sending people into a building where they don't even talk to anyone the whole time they just do the same thing over and over and over again it's so mindless it's so ridiculous yeah i told me to agree time and money i mean it's not because it helps

1:24:24it helps make the members feel like they're doing something righteous and they're significant so the church benefits and you can say the members benefit in a way it's just as the world just humanity benefit no because what if they were spending all those hours even just like reading books to kids and like you said delivering water working at a soup kitchen how about protecting Mormon children from child abuse that'd be a good thing for the church members to spend their time doing absolutely the amount of hours that are spent in a temple every week with people over the age of 60 they could be doing a lot of other things yeah yeah well i'm glad we covered that and speaking the Mormon temples we've got another story involving Mormon temples is if that weren't enough Megan yeah and there was a huge build up to this so i wanted to like experience that so this says salt lake cities signature lds temple is undergoing a historic transformation here's a peak inside they allowed CNN to come in the temple with cameras

1:25:29and so go to the clip this is just a portion of the clip all right for the past 133 years unless you were in good standing with the church you were not allowed to walk into the temple i'm not in good standing with any church so why am i allowed now? well because they are opening this temple up for the world to see we want the world to see the joy and happiness that comes in a greater understanding of the blessings that are heavily bother house and store for us yeah there are a few rules for the construction workers on this massive multi-year project in the contract with the general conchers that says no uh vulgar language no loud music it's part of the level of decor when we accept now all of this construction is new made to look old look we take a look at that chandelier that is modeled on a chandelier from a catalog from the time that the old temple was built after the lord comes we want the temple to be in search i believe i've been

1:26:32prepared by god to to be on this we from the outside we definitely do feel that there's something secretive and maybe stop going on that we just don't know about i like to say sacred not secret sacred not secret yeah hmm what do you think thank you i just think it's interesting when the church allows someone in and what they allow them to present well and then i just love to the sacred not secret at the end like can we retire that line along with the they can leave the church but they can't leave it alone i'm surprised that it's newsworthy that during remodeling they let the general public come into the temple before it's rededicated haven't they been doing that for decades yes but it's the Salt Lake temple john oh i mean yeah and if they did spend probably a billion or more remodeling the temple and i think it's cool like i love that temple i i love our history

1:27:33uh i i appreciate crying fine craftsmanship so i mean i think it's even cool that they're remodeling and renovating temple square i think it's cool yeah i mean i i i think a church that claims to be jesus's one true church would likely spend their money in ways that benefit more people but there is something to be said for preservation of history yeah no that's true like the level of the amount of money being spent is problematic because Jesus even in the book of Mormon condemns costly apparel and seems to condemn opulence you know religion or church based opulence so this really does seem to fly in the face like wouldn't wouldn't Jesus rather that money be spent clothing the naked feeding the poor helping out the literal widows etc yes we're just offering people clean water and medical care

1:28:37yeah that's fair that's fair okay uh so what else is going on so then so that was kind of the beginning of the week with CNN's big reveal right and then the temple square facebook page said a meaningful chapter in the story of the salt lake temple is about to begin join us tomorrow for a special media event as we reveal the theme for the salt lake temple celebration and you know watch the church newsroom live stream starting at starting at 10 30 a.m. and be among the first to hear what is planned for this historic occasion i just loved that they use the word reveal like it's going to be a revelation yeah it's just like a social media push yeah so this was just the next step in that process of them like building to this huge moment yeah okay and do we do we think that um someone's not being honest here well it let's let's let's keep going here so this i took a few tiny

1:29:39little clips from the reveal so they had like a 30-minute live um press video that they put out everywhere live and um this is the the first bit of that so let's watch the clip all right pretty quick good morning we welcome each of you back to the salt lake temple it is good to be back in this house of the lord we are grateful to have with us president deeter f uctorf acting president of the quorum of the twelve apostles and chairman of the salt lake temple celebration we welcome elder quinton l cook and elder niel l anderson of the quorum of the twelve apostles and also of the salt lake temple celebration executive committee we excuse elder gary e stevenson a member of the executive committee who is traveling on assignment also seated at the front are president camele and johnson general relief society president and member of the salt lake temple celebration

1:30:43executive committee president uh Emily bell freeman general young women president and president rosemary k charibota general primary president okay what's wrong with that well it seems kind of boring but it's just all this pomp and circo stands around let's talk about all of the men who are here and let's show them on the camera and then let's say and also like it's kind of a side note the women are here and you can't even see all of them in this camera angle but we promise you they're here it's just they're just not cognizant of how they are presenting themselves in that way i don't think it's hard to run away from the fact that the church is a patriarchy you know yeah they couldn't even get their camera to pan all the way over to show the primary president all right uh should we roll the next clip yep all right we invite the children to come and see we invite the youth to come and feel we invite families to come and learn together that this

1:31:51is literally the house of god okay what's wrong with the woman that's a woman i know i'm i'm i'm sorry what's wrong now i'm so glad that they allowed a woman to speak that's amazing i'm so glad that they called a woman of color into a leadership position i think that's amazing and i didn't find anything particularly wrong with what she said i just wanted to get your reaction and maybe in the comments too like what is the literal house of god a temple like god needs an edifice or multiple how many now a couple hundred houses on earth it's just another one of those things where if you scratch the surface doesn't make a whole lot of sense well and Mormons you know that's dogwistling to Mormons because Mormons believe that god and Jesus appear in the temple that there's out there's a special sacred secret room called the holy of holies where Mormons are taught Mormon prophets literally talk to Jesus face to face and i think we all know that actually doesn't happen

1:32:53and we've actually had past Mormon prophets admit they don't talk to Jesus past and possibly current Mormon prophets admit that but still that belief is allowed to be spread amongst the membership that when they say house of the Lord they mean that god and Jesus show up and talk to prophets face to face which is not true but that's what that's what the dogwistling means there and she almost didn't say it and then she stopped because she stumbled and then said literal so yeah just one of those interesting things in Mormonism it's that god can't appear to people unless there's some super expensive ornate but Mormon building was shinda liars and by the way that also implies that god doesn't really appear to other people not in Catholic cathedrals or Protestant cathedrals or muslim mmasks or Jewish temples like gods only showing up in these opulent super expensive white Mormon temples that are tripling on people's property rights and

1:34:00becoming isores to the broader community yes yeah you can see the temple out your window and not that beautiful mountain range anymore but god's gonna be there i mean god can't appear anywhere else you know you can't appear in the mountains but isn't that where he typically even in the book of Mormon that's where he went was to the mountain yeah we have a comment thanks for the super chat random 7103 they write on my mission we attended seek temples all the time who fed anyone walking in the door workers cooked for everyone imagine if LDS temples had that amen thank you for the super chat and amen yes would not be amazing if all the money and time and wealth were spent actually doing what Jesus taught yeah i envisioned it sometimes should do yeah all right let's play the next clip ladies and gentlemen i feel so grateful to be able to be here with you today on this

1:35:00special occasion this great announcement as i thought about what i could say i'm just i'm just sitting here in this incredible edifice odd by the the artistry the beauty of this building a building that the challenge any building anywhere in this country or europe anywhere in the in the world okay i just thought that was kind of funny like Mormons have this they it's often have this overinflated sense of importance where it's like the the Salt Lake Temple is a historic building and they are restoring it to look historical and there are a lot of really cool beautiful architecturally significant buildings in the world and when i searched online so the next slide you'll see it's we don't have to read through it but it's like the top the world's 26 most beautiful buildings in 2026 there's not a single Mormon temple on there uh yeah go ahead and let's read it

1:36:01well a lot of them i uh can't pronounce so do you want to go for it john? all the Barbican estate in the UK the hall grins scursia in itland i'm making i'm mastering the production so good on a familia in spain museum son and tahtoria pyramids of giza egypt i think we get the picture lots and lots and lots of the most beautiful buildings in 2026 i mean maybe you know anti-mormons created that list i'm i'm sure they did i'm i'm not saying that the Salt Lake temple can't be beautiful i'm just saying like the fact that he's comparing it to every building in the world and it can compete with the cathedrals of Europe i think might be a stretch i mean it's a little Mormon centric it's a little Utah centric maybe yeah well and he is a politician and who leads Utah right now so governor of the state yeah all right let's play the next clip okay and actually the purpose of us being together here today is uh actually there are two things we want to make sure

1:37:08first of all we wanted to listen to the children right that was the most beautiful testimony that we want to see the temple but then we wanted to talk to you about the theme of the celebration of the Salt Lake temple in the coming year and i think you wouldn't guess it but maybe you have it is rejoice in Christ all right what's wrong with your jersey in Christ maybe there's nothing wrong that was just the moment right the whole months and months and months since Russell Nelson announced this have been building to this moment and it was fairly obvious that Deeter Ucdorf was kind of speaking off the cuff it didn't look like he was reading from a script he stumbled a lot he and for him to say well you might have guessed it and here it is it just didn't seem revelatory it it just was very normal i think that was the the feeling that i came away with was

1:38:14that it was just so normal okay all right let's play the next clip this morning we talked about the people in napalah who are suffering and in many other places and our prayers and our thoughts our feelings go out the church for instance is reaching out down preparing for significant help for the people of napalah even though we have very very few members there and that is the reason why we rejoice in Christ it's independent interesting what you include that one Megan it is speech was so strange if you listen to it for the event but then he's saying and admitting and this is why i really don't think he was speaking from something that was written previously saying we don't have a lot of members in napalah like they don't typically try to say stuff like that over the pulpit in a worldwide press conference admitting

1:39:16that they have a low membership anywhere yeah that is where let's show the slide because i think it relates yeah i just then i went and looked how many members do they claim in napalah in 2009 they said fewer than a hundred members that was from the church news in 2015 they said there is one branch with fewer than 100 active members and then in 2017 they said fewer than 200 Latter-day Saints live in napalah a majority attended the devotional on august 17th we had a large attendance of about 140 which was encouraging in itself so it's just the way they play with words yeah it's kind of interesting i'll just say that this is a tricky one because on the one hand we all want the Mormon church to use more of its wealth to help the poor and the needy and the sick and the afflicted on the other hand Jesus was really clear what did Jesus say about when you give to the poor what you shouldn't shouldn't do do you remember you're gonna have to tell me he said you

1:40:17don't talk about it you don't boast about it you don't you don't put your trumpets when you give to the poor you give in secret so that's tricky because it would be hypocritical of us to call call the church out for not giving more to the poor and then to criticize them when they talk about giving to the poor because how else will we know if they're giving to the poor if they don't relus but it is just factually also true that Jesus said you shouldn't do that um yeah it's weird that they do that anyway yes but if they were just giving all the time they wouldn't have to talk about it because people would just see it yeah right like if they were just out and every member in the world instead of going to the temple was out in their communities people would just see it and know it and they wouldn't be questioning it yeah yeah and we all know that before the ensign peak scandal broke the church gave a fray even though the church gives far too little now in 2026 as a percentage of its wealth it gave far far less until

1:41:23the ensign peak scandal broke with with David Nielsen with the blood of David Nielsen and the church was shamed and embarrassed into admitting how selfish and stingy it was with its vast wealth and only then did we see it's really giving start to significantly increase and then even then people allege and the widows by covers this that a lot of the numbers that they claim nowadays in the terms of their philanthropy are are cooked so i hope the church can take this on more seriously because if anyone can help with poverty and illness and disaster relief in the world it's it's the trillion dollar Mormon church you know yep and i would love to see that happen i will applaud them if they do it yeah all right let's play the next clip we invite you to come and see and love Jesus Christ and the people who come here and then you will see there will be a unity

1:42:28we will not be judgmental against anyone or any faith especially the rising generation we invite to come and see and share what to have here and invite others to come to have the same experience okay what's not worthy about that Megan well he just considering the first story that we talked about he's saying everyone's welcome here we're not going to be judgmental at the same time they say this is the one true church and we're the only ones who actually speak to God so it's just this you know both sides of their mouth type thing we love everyone but there's always there's always a huge but at the end of that sentence for them it also seems like he's just throwing in talking points he's like oh we're we're hemorrhaging youth so let's invite the young people oh and by the way we're giving him a call and you know we're philanthropists here i mean he's i it we all like to dorf we all want him to become prophet because he's the least bad apparently

1:43:30of all the apostles at the same time he is so he's just seems like he's parroting talking points that his PR machine is giving to him basically yeah it wasn't a well polished speech yeah all right uh let's go ahead and play the next clip in order to truly rejoice in Christ together during the celebration we need thousands of welcoming volunteers to create a joyful experience for millions of guests if you would like to be part of a once in a lifetime opportunity we invite you to go to temple square dot ord before september 14th and apply to join okay so we soliciting volunteers what what's not where to be about that i just thought it was funny because the headline of this whole event was in 24 hours one million tickets were reserved at the beginning i said sold they're not for sale they were free but one million tickets were reserved and yet for six months how long has it been

1:44:36that they have been asking for these volunteers and obviously those roles have not filled so they've got a lot of people who want to come to the temple they're having a really hard time getting people to come for free and volunteer to send people through the tours and i think that takes us to the next story yeah so this was the the culminating headline of this whole ordeal was one million spaces reserved in first 24 hours for upcoming Salt Lake temple tours okay just at face value that seems hard to believe that like the world is clamoring to you know visit the temple such that a million reservations would happen in the first 24 hours it's almost like if we could get access to the PR plan that this sort of headline would have been planned ahead of time because this idea that nothing succeeds like success if you can create the appearance of interest in demand that will help

1:45:40the church be more successful but let's hear more of your reporting Megan. Well so if you there wasn't a lot of pushback on that headline right but so this is just a different slide so Mike Lee who is also a politician in Utah he said if you're running for president in 2028 attending the Salt Lake Temple open house in 2027 is an absolute must if you want any shot at the latter day saint vote don't pass up the opportunity which is the first of its kind in 130 years and then latter day truth responded to that by saying I won't only vote for presidential candidate in 2028 who attends the Salt Lake Temple open house I need to know that whoever takes the oval office represents the latter day saints I bet I'm not alone. And it's worth noting that Mike Lee tags JD Vance Marco Rubio head crews AOC Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Gavin Newsom Mike Lee and yeah well and I just I think like if I was still a member I have 13 siblings right we

1:46:45would have all gone on and reserved the maximum out of tickets we could get yeah even if we knew we weren't going to use them all yeah so did they actually get a million reserved in the way that the public who reads that headline are going to think a million means likely not there's probably lots of duplicates plus social media influencers it's got first dibs and dignitaries church leaders well let's face it the church will use its vast wealth and power to pull out all the stops to make this as big of a deal as they can whining and dining people gifts paying them mobilizing members the media you know it will do that and that's what it can do when it's super wealthy and powerful and I'll be honest Megan I'm not a bah humbuk about this sort of thing I in some ways like I do cringe at the misuse of wealth but I I want to see Temple Square be beautiful I want to see I

1:47:50I think you know just like Catholics and Protestants and Muslims and Jews are proud of their heritage I still identify as a Mormon I still am proud of my Mormon heritage and I like historical preservation and I think there's something like you know Temple and Temple Square and yeah I think they're important historical landmarks personally and I love Temple Square I love the I'll call it the Mormon Tabernacle choir even though that's not what this named anymore I love that stuff it's it's it's just in my heart buried embedded deep within so I'm not about humbuk about this and I'm not judging people who are and I'm not saying you are but I'm just saying we're covering this but in my heart I'm like go Temple Square okay but that's just my opinion Megan what do you what do you feel I'm gonna go John don't think I didn't get tickets I've actually never been inside the Salt Lake Temple you're one of the million

1:48:52but I've never been in the Salt Lake Temple because every time we went after I was endowed I ended up staying out to watch the kids so I've literally never been inside the Salt Lake Temple so I want to see it yeah it's gorgeous and it's even more gorgeous now yeah I'm really quickly you have one at least one more slide what's this oh so um this somebody wrote this on x the complete and utter disregard of people this isn't have anything to do with this all yeah this this is totally new yeah so there were there were um two other quick little stories that I had at the end if we have time but if not let's do it we got 12 minutes okay well let's skip the the one before that then because that one but let's go to this one yeah so the complete and utter disregard but this is Dale Redland I like right but go ahead and go okay so Dale Redland I saw this yesterday he posted on his social media pages real men are accountable for their actions we should tell people he's in a puzzle for the church oh sorry I forget that not everyone knows that one

1:49:57of the level puzzles yeah one of the 15 liters of the church okay keep going okay real men are accountable for their actions acknowledge their mistakes apologize and try to set things right I met some real men recently members of my home ward I want to tell you about so we're thinking men here John when using of men what what age group are we talking about real men I'm talking good no let's hope that he's thinking of people who were actually adults you know 18 21 plus for using the term men let's see what he says though recently my wife Ruth substituted as a teacher in a youth Sunday school class the students were 12 and 13 year old young men and young women some of the young men were acting like well 12 and 13 year old young men they were a bit casual and less than engaged then ideal in the lesson about Job Ruth had given the student a hand the students a handout with some scriptures to read of course paper airplanes were made of the handouts as anyone surprised Ruth who is an excellent and adaptable teacher collected the airplanes continued with the lesson and thought no more about it on the following Thursday evening we had a knock on

1:51:01our door three of the young men were on the porch they handed Ruth a letter that read dear sister Renland we want to apologize for our behavior in Sunday school we meant no disrespect even though our actions said otherwise we failed to meet our duty as deacons and we are sorry we have learned from our mistake and better learned what our ironic priesthood duty is we have made a bouquet of paper airplanes for you to show our appreciation for teaching our class and for helping us learn our duty better thank you for what you do for the church love the deacons quorum i am grateful for their example to me of being priesthooders and real men okay so what's not to you what's newsworthy about that i actually have come to very much dislike the term young men and young women when we're talking about teenagers kids kids their children yes kids because now boys and girls i think right go into young men and young women when they're the year that they turn 12 so they can even be 11 years old like they're not even teenagers some of these real men that he's talking about and

1:52:08then he's saying that they acted like 12 and 13 year olds like that's a bad thing like let's allow 12 and 13 year olds to act like 12 and 13 year olds without shame and feeling duty bound and it it sounds like his wife was even maybe embracing that and then i'm wondering who was it that told them that they misbehaved or did they really come to that conclusion on their own there were just so many things psychologically and developmentally that didn't feel quite right about that for me love it well i'll tell you what my reaction was i thought you're going to take it in a totally different direction for me the headline would would be Mormon apostle Dale G. Rennland calls out Mormon prophet and president down H. Oaks is not being a real man because as we all know Mormon prophet and president down H. Oaks is on record saying

1:53:10that the church and its leadership neither seek nor offer apologies and for those who don't know what i'm talking about first of all let me read again what Dale Rennland says he writes real men are accountable for their actions acknowledge their mistakes apologize and try to set things right i'm not making that up right that's what that's what he's saying there now let's read what down H. Oaks says about apologies in an article of the tributum that we publish in March oh my goodness for some reason that's coming across in Spanish let me change the audio track to English and let me play that again in a tribune story that we published on Tuesday elder Oaks you were quoted as saying that the church doesn't seek apologies and we don't give them and of course disbarque a whole storm on social media about those who who wonder how this view comports with

1:54:10Christian theology again wanted to give you an opportunity to respond to that i'm not aware that the word apology appears anywhere in the scriptures bible or book of Mormon the word apology contains a lot of connotations in it and a lot of significance we do not seek apologies when our temple was desecrated in California when people were fired and intimidated when a lot of other court see measures were used we sought no apology that's what i meant by saying we don't to seek apology we think that the best way to solve these problems is not a formal statement of words that a apology consists of and you see christophers are just smiling there and what he means my smiling is stop talking you're embarrassing yourself in the church but anyway redland calls out oaks is not being a real man that's my headline maegan i love it john

1:55:14that's why we work so well together we just highlight different parts of the post but now someone needs to make a short about that well leave it to analyzing Mormonism all right uh let's let's hit these last stories real quick maegan these last two are related so this i saw on x just recently it looks like it was posted on august 26 the complete and utter disregard of people greeting returned Mormon missionaries at the salt lake city airport has become the exhausting airport exit i dread instead of using their giant provided greeting room they choose to block the narrow path of passengers exiting security because why and they're referring to all the families and and ward members and throngs that wait outside the security gate at the salt lake airport for missionaries when they're coming home again i'm not a humbug on this one i think it's a beautiful touching part of Mormonism that Mormon missionaries are greeted and celebrated when they get home but i also understand why people might find the interknowing what what are your thoughts on it maegan

1:56:16well they remodeled the entire salt lake city airport and put in a space specifically for these greetings and people don't use it yeah they still go out and block the hallway and i think that's what they're complaining about and i've flown into salt lake numerous times in the past year and i've seen it and it's hard to get through and there are all these banners and there's this whole room off to the side where they should be they don't they go in there to wait but then when they actually do the greeting they come out and then there's a huge throng of people so i can see why people would get annoyed with that if they're just trying to get to where they're going sure that's fair all right let's play this last clip because we're almost out of time all right go for it goodbye at the salt lake airport could look a little different today the tsa introduced gate side by tsa precheck basically what it means is precheck members can walk all the way to the gate besides that the tsa says members could also go to the airport to dine or shop basically go along with your love one to the gate salt lake city's airport is one of 14 locations selected for this program whoa what does that mean

1:57:21so i think that means if they're a part of tsa precheck now they can go all the way to the gate so now these throngs of people are gonna go through tsa precheck which i think isn't that a paid service yeah i believe it's a paid service and then they'll be able to then this huge massive people are gonna be waiting right when you get off the yeah yeah before two thousand one family members could just go to the gate and see people off and that that hasn't been an option for 25 years that's how old i am but i remember when you could you could see your love going off at the gate and it looks like now you can that's i think that's pretty cool actually yeah i was surprised because i do remember seeing my older brothers we went all the way to the gate to see them off on their missions yeah well that's fascinating well we've got four minutes to spare i'm just gonna share one story that i thought was interesting that um that i i think is kind of maybe also worth sharing and it's back to spend stubby cocks uh last week there was a little i guess he's

1:58:28coming out with the book and um and in his book he talks about i think he talks about death threats that he received when he uh endorsed trump so you know a lot of people really like Spencer Cox when he was voted governor because he was seemingly progressive even though he's Republican he seemed to be pro LGBT and then he kind of seemed to backtrack on his LGBT support including endorsing trump and he writes that um after trump was shot in the ear after you know trump ran again that uh that cocks um that cocks endorsed trump and received a lot of hate from it and uh even experienced death threats so i don't i don't endorse death threats uh we don't get political but i think that might be an interesting thing to cover in an if future episode about cocks the cocks

1:59:29is the response he got from that anyway Megan we're almost at a time uh i'll just any closing words you want to share for today's episode and also how how could people follow and support you and what you do Megan besides donating to this podcast how could people support you so final words love is love i think that's where we started and where we'll you know want to end and you can find me at generally unquodible my main platforms are patreon and youtube but i'm also on tiktok instagram and facebook and spotify thanks for all you do you do great work Megan and people like us as a team so i'm glad we're able to work together uh you bring great things to our show uh if you want to donate to this specific program go to mormannews.com and uh become a monthly donor that'll let us know you value this program also mormannews.com is an aggregator where we aggregate the day's most current news in news and i'm really happy with that website check it out and share it

2:00:34please like and subscribe here as well um as on general unquodible and everywhere facebook instagram youtube tiktok etc i want to thank julia for her great work brooklyn um trevor for his moderating of the comments the morman stories board open stories foundation board and everyone who supports us especially our donors we couldn't do this without our donors thanks again Megan you're the best thanks john this was fun and thanks to all our viewers and listeners who support us on the morman news podcasts and our morman stories podcasts be good to each other be kind of each other and we'll love his lab we'll see you all again soon on another episode of the morman news podcast take care everybody